The Girl and the Stars - (The Book of the Ice) by Mark Lawrence (Hardcover)

Number of Pages: 384
Genre: Fiction + Literature Genres
Sub-Genre: Fantasy
Series Title: The Book of the Ice
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Ace Books
Age Range: Adult
Book theme: Epic
Author: Mark Lawrence
Language: English

About the Book

"A stunning new epic fantasy series following a girl who is cast out by her people and must fight with everything she has to survive, set in the same world as Red Sister. In some children, the old blood shows, giving them strength, speed, and mystical power. In the cities of Abeth's Corridor, such children are prized. But on the vast ice plains of Abeth, those traits lead children to burn bright and die young, and the discipline of the priests is harsh. Any child who shows signs of the old races is cast into the Pit of the Missing, never to be seen again. Yaz is only sixteen, but she feels a burgeoning gift and she knows the next gathering will be her last--the priests see everything, and her aberrance will not be tolerated. But then she is spared and her brother is identified as one of the broken and cast down into the pit. Stunned, awash with guilt and grief, she flings herself in after him. She expects to find death. Instead she finds a sprawling, secret civilization, where survival is even less assured than on the ice plains. And she soon realizes that this underground empire revolves around a great truth--and an even greater evil--that puts all of Abeth in danger"--

Book Synopsis

A stunning new epic fantasy series following a young outcast who must fight with everything she has to survive, set in the same world as Red Sister.

In the ice, east of the Black Rock, there is a hole into which broken children are thrown. Yaz's people call it the Pit of the Missing and now it is drawing her in as she has always known it would.

To resist the cold, to endure the months of night when even the air itself begins to freeze, requires a special breed. Variation is dangerous, difference is fatal. And Yaz is not the same.

Yaz's difference tears her from the only life she's ever known, away from her family, from the boy she thought she would spend her days with, and has to carve out a new path for herself in a world whose existence she never suspected. A world full of difference and mystery and danger.

Yaz learns that Abeth is older and stranger than she had ever imagined. She learns that her weaknesses are another kind of strength and that the cruel arithmetic of survival that has always governed her people can be challenged.

Review Quotes

Praise for The Girl and the Stars

"Mark Lawrence has produced more than a dozen novels in a decade, and The Girl and the Stars is one of the best... not only a thrilling fight for survival...but a revelatory coming of age story."-The Guardian

"A crackling good adventure with a rich mythological background. Yaz, like Nona in the Ancestor series, is strong, vulnerable, and an excellent anchor for this new series."--Booklist

"Exceptional, haunting, and claustrophobic...An incredible and emotionaladventure."--Grimdark Magazine

Wondrous and chilling...Readers looking for an utterly fresh fantasy world would do well to give this one a try.-Bookpage

About the Author

Mark Lawrence was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, to British parents but moved to the UK at the age of one. After earning a PhD in mathematics at Imperial College London, he went back to the US to work on a variety of research projects, including the Star Wars missile-defense program. Since returning to the UK, he has worked mainly on image processing and decision/reasoning theory. He never had any ambition to be a writer, so he was very surprised when a half-hearted attempt to find an agent turned into a global publishing deal overnight. His first trilogy, The Broken Empire, has been universally acclaimed as a groundbreaking work of fantasy, and both Emperor of Thorns and The Liar's Key have won the David Gemmell Legend Award for best fantasy novel. Mark is married, with four children, and lives in Bristol.